How do you know when you’ve made a game-changing album? For Mikael Akerfeldt, who humbly admits that Blackwater Park was just another record in the band’s journey at that time, perhaps you don’t. And, in some ways, the album was just a part of Opeth’s evolution, following on from the stately Still Life and refining the band’s increasing juxtaposition of progressive and deathly elements into a coherent whole. Yet, it was game changing. For a start, it was the band’s first album for respected label Music For Nations (also home to Cradle of Filth and Anathema). Moreover, it was the band’s first collaboration with Steven Wilson, already a producer and artist of some renown (although not yet the prolific legend he has become), who helped to accentuate the sense of gentle melancholy that had separated Opeth from their peers on the preceding four albums.
This edition, back on a reinvigorated Music for Nations, arrives in time for the album’s twentieth anniversary. It is not the first time Blackwater Park has been given the deluxe treatment – a handsome Sony legacy version appeared in 2010 – and, to be honest, this does feel like something of a missed opportunity. Although beautifully packaged in a matte-finish hardback digibook, complete with detailed liner notes from Mikael Akerfeldt and Dom Lawson (the latter providing a typically passionate commentary that helps to place the album in context); potential bonus content is bafflingly overlooked. Gone, for example, is the surround sound DVD from the legacy edition (which also featured a making of documentary), while the bonus tracks from the limited two-disc edition from 2001 are also missing. Indeed, the only additional offering is a typically spectacular live version of opening track The Leper Affinity (the only element to survive the cull from the Sony Legacy Edition), meaning that this new version offers nothing to long-time fans hoping for further insight into the making of a legend.
As such, this new edition is predominantly for the newcomer, enticed by Opeth’s continuing evolution and, potentially unaware of the death metal heritage that still sees the band’s live shows move effortlessly between expansive prog and explosive metallic assaults. It is, unequivocally, a masterpiece and if for any reason your collection is absent this stunning album, then this is a great opportunity to rectify the situation.
It opens with The Leper Affinity, a hulking, ten-minute piece of music that manages to combine baroque majesty with searing death metal fury. While such epics may feel familiar today (a testament to Opeth’s enduring legacy), only Emperor appeared to be operating on a similar scale in 2001 and their own masterpiece, Prometheus: The Discipline of Fire and Demise, was released in October that same year. For fans who had gaped in awe at the beauty inherent in 1999’s conceptual piece Still Life, it was an affirmation of Opeth’s myriad talents, and it has lost none of its power to inspire awe some twenty years down the line. Ending with a short piano coda, The Leper Affinity lulls the listener into a false sense of security that is soon torn asunder by the monumental Bleak, arguably the song that best encapsulates the Opeth sound from Blackwater Park to the aptly named Watershed. In contrast, the band’s future progressive direction finds its clearest antecedent in the lovely Harvest, an acoustic number that did much to predict the subtle beauty of Damnation (2003), underscoring Steven Wilson’s influence in the process. The acoustic guitar remains on The Drapery Falls, only here it’s used to colour the sound, underpinning a much heavier piece of music that seems to ebb and flow with a symphonic sweep that is epic in scope.
Given that Blackwater Park always felt like an album meant for vinyl, it should come as no surprise that there’s a sense of separation between the massed riffs of The Drapery Falls and the contemplative introduction that leads into Dirge For November. Played as an acoustic lament, it provides the opening notes of the second LP, and it’s nearly two minutes before the song explodes into metallic fury. It ends as it begins, with a gorgeous coda that allows the slow build of The Funeral Portrait the time it needs to breathe. It’s another song that defies easy categorisation thanks to an elastic riff that threatens to head off on any number of unexpected digressions. It’s followed by the short segue, Patterns In The Ivy, really little more than a prelude to the monstrous Blackwater Park – a twelve minute behemoth that neatly summarises the remarkable qualities of the album. Rounding out this twentieth anniversary edition is a brilliantly performed and recorded live rendition of The Leper Affinity (Live). In all honesty, I prefer such things to be kept separate, preserving the integrity of the original album, but it’s a worthy inclusion for those who don’t already own the Legacy Edition.
Blackwater Park remains a seminal album, providing a breakwater moment for Opeth and influencing any number of the bands who now dot the progressive metal landscape, and it more than deserves a special anniversary package. This, however, falls somewhat short. When one sets it against the gorgeous repackaging of Damnation and Deliverance (also via Music For Nations), which included surround mixes, it’s hard not to feel that more could have been included. As such, long-time fans will probably want to avoid the CD version. The gorgeous vinyl versions, however, are more than worthy of a look as the original pressing is both difficult and expensive to locate, and that is where I would recommend the initiated direct their attention. For those who missed out the first time, or who are new to the fold and wish to explore the band’s illustrious past, this is absolutely essential listening and, in the absence of being able to track down the Legacy edition, this is an attractive version of a godlike album.
Album: 10/10
Anniversary Edition (extras): 6/10
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